Conundrum

by Chandrachur Ghose, Anuj Dhar

India's biggest political mystery resolved. Sitting in a dilapidated house in a remote part of India, a six-year-old man started narrating in his deep baritone the layout of Jessore Cantonment in East Pakistan to his handful of followers. They got the import only a few weeks later when Jessore fell to the advancing Indian Army. This was in December 1971, and Subhas Chandra Bose was officially dead for 25 years. Ever since Netaji was pronounced dead following a plane crash in August 1945, Indians across the world have wondered whether the claim was true. The government, however, decided to accept the story based on circumstantial evidence. For the first time, it is now conclusively shown that Netaji lived on. Having spent over 15 years in procuring and scouring through thousands of records from across the world, interacting with eyewitnesses and consulting experts, the authors come to a history-bending conclusion that a mostly unseen, unnamed man who lived in various parts of up from the 1950s to 1985 was indeed Subhas Chandra Bose. From a "living" Netaji's throwbacks about his contemporaries, his views on constitutional issues and India's foreign policy, to his forays into the world of paranormal and top-secret covert missions across the borders to first-ever sensational Disclosure why he could not emerge in public -- no other book is as bold and vast in its scope and implications. National award-winning director srijit mukherji's upcoming movie "gumnaami" Is based on conundrum.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, India, Indian Literature, Politics

856 pages, Paperback

First published May 5, 2019

Reviews

[Ashish Iyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book this was. The writers have painstakingly detailed the case of Subhash Chandra Bose as Gumnami Baba and have only argued scientifically with evidence without any emotional rhetoric.

A fabulously detailed work with intricate research materials, the authors have put forth the facts in front of us in a comprehensive and lucid manner, and it is up to us readers to make the final assumptions as to what really happened to one of the greatest characters of Indian history. Revealing true history of India since Independence. Biggest secret is no more a secret: Netaji & Gumnami baba were same. Conspiracy of INC to hide real contribution of Netaji in our Independence.

Through showcasing hard facts, the authors have demolished the entire official propaganda about the Bose mystery. Some serious questions raised. Now it's time to force the government to reveal whatever evidence they are having a order a probe into the matter immediately. A must read for all those who love & respect Netaji Subhash.

[The Conch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shri Anuj Dhar is an Indian author and former journalist. He has already penned three books, all are in category of best selling non-fiction, on life of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The author is a dedicated researcher on mysterious disappearance of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose (NSCB hereinafter). The book 'Conundrum' is the third book on the same topic, however, it is more massive compared to 'India's Biggest Cover Up' and 'What Happened to Netaji'.

Primary messages of the book are discussed chapter wise as follows:

Chapter 1:
Author narrates the struggle to gather information and document about secretive Gumnami Baba or Bhagawanji from Govt. Archive, commission on NSCB, through interview of eye witnesses and personal letter written to followers. It took decades to establish a commission to investigate Gumnami Baba's issue. Author provokes reader to think about reasons behind such an apathy from both State and Central Govt.

Chapter 2:
Entire book contains vast amount of information regarding geopolitical analysis corroborated with equally massive amount of references. This book is the result of painstaking dogged pursue with various national and international government agencies. Beside thrilled reading, one can upgrade and develop knowledge on history of India's freedom struggle and international politics during the era of WWII.

Chapter 3:
NSB was constantly moving from one place to another to avoid tracking by Indian Govt. and its IB and CID. Strangely, though Govt. of India already declared NSCB dead in plane crash in Taiwan, still there were constant snooping and tracking on Gumanmi Baba and Netaji's kin.

Chapter 4:
Stunning revelation of secret camaraderie between top brass of RSS and former president Mr.Pranab Mukherjee with Bhagawanji.

Chapter 5 and 6:
Author exposes wretched hypocrisy from investigative agencies of Govt. during investigation. Report of DNA and forensic analysis can be doctored even they are from any reputed institutes of India. To resolve the murder of Bhanwari Devi and Aarushi, CID took help of FBI and top US forensic laboratory. However, Govt. Of India allocated the case of Bhagawanji to corrupt Indian forensic department to get a pre-planned negative report to prove Netaji was not Bhagawanji or Gumnami Baba. Strangely, a renowned Bengali newspaper, Anandabazar Patrika, even declared negative result of DNA analysis of Bhagawanji before arrival of report.

Due to exorbitant cost of DNA analysis, author could not able to carry out the same from any of the US laboratories. However, author and his team verified the sample of handwriting of NSCB/ Bhagawanji/ Gumnami Baba through eminent hand writing analysis expert Mr. Curt Baggett. Author’s team did not inform Mr.Baggett about the person. Readers may expect a shock here.

Chapter 7: Author searches and joins loose threads and scattered hints about identity of Bhagawanji.

Chapter 8:
Saga of disgusting incident of snooping by Intelligence Bureaus (IB) continued on Bose's family members. Even they did not leave a boy of 16 -17 years old just for writing letter to brother of Netaji. All these were happening in independent India and under guidance of Congress Govt. A man did a crime by dreaming to see his motherland free from monster Britain. The presentation of mindboggling secret documents makes reader flabbergasted about how much effort and pains author and his team waded through. One point is prominent from all these document that Netaji was considered as disaster for national security by then Govt. of India.

Chapter 9:
Human is by birth selfish. Allurement of plump political posts and career is greater than love, otherwise, in spite of knowing concocted theories such as plane crash or execution in Russia, still they stick to these bogus theories. Believing NSCB did not die in plane crash or in Russia, could jeopardize their political career. By the way majority of them are associated with Congress.

Chapter 10:
The reason behind why India could not able to become one of the polarity in the arena of global politics, in spite of having tremendous capabilities, has been addressed. It was due to compromising attitude of our old politicians like Nehru, Gandhi and even Patel. Otherwise, the British secret agency MI5 could not operate in India even after getting independence and that was too on the request of Govt. bureaucrats.

Chapter 11:
Scathing attack of Bhagawanji on trio, Nehru, Gandhi and Patel, continued. He exposed their compromised character.

Chapter 12:
One could be expert of international power politics and foreign affairs by reading this chapter. One will be spell bounded by reading engagement of NSCB with USSR, China and Vietnam. He tried best to deal with these powers for liberating of his beloved mother India. In his word, this was the "work of the horizon".

Chapter 13:
This chapter is not for atheists or “Godless people” as this deals with spiritualistic attitude of NSCB. He was a monk in the garb of soldier, a staunch devotee of Maa Kaali and did Tanrik Sadhana.

Chapter 14:
One can be enraged and mournful by reading Bhaganji's struggle to live in free India. He did not beg anything from anyone and lived utter penury. To survive, he had to eat only seeds boiled with water or sometime only leaves or even ash.

Bravo! Politician wolves of free India, you really honored our son of the soil.

Chapter 15:
Communists of India described him as "Tojo's Dog". Some abused his as agent of fascist Hitler and Nazi. Some simply said he was CIA agent, murderer who hide in the name of Gumnami Baba or imposter. Can Sun be maligned by anyone's spitting?

Chapter 16:
The last chapter analyses about what could happen in India’s political scenario if NSCB returned to India. Can his beloved motherland; for which he sacrificed his family, life, career, health; ever prepared to offer himself the throne again? Many possibilities have been speculated.

The chapter is important for the answer of the question that if NSCB was so great and dare devil, why he hid himself? Few still abuse him as "Bhagoda" (fugitive). By the way, NSCB himself, obviously as Bhagawanji or Gumnami Baba, clarified.

Lastly, there are three appendixes which give psychoanalysis of NSCB, his letters and his place in Indian history. The pilgrimage of 834 pages ends here.

This book will enrich readers with political game of all major geopolitical powers, activities of secret agencies of world, selfish attitude of India's major political parties, the torture for loving motherland and obviously history of the period of freedom struggle.
Reader will come with profuse reference of documents, ground-breaking books and study material which can augment one's understanding of history and foreign affair.

'Conundrum' will definitely be going to create uproar. So, better to have copy soon. Happy reading.

[Ishani · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The Man of The Match’ of Indian Freedom Struggle was Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

Indians generally fall under 2 categories : those who heard/believe in the Bose saga and those who don’t. Even the ones who do believe would only know the highlights of Bose’s legacy and nothing else.

This book is full of explosive facts & truths. What starts with the mere appearance of a “Sadhu”, gradually builds a case for/against him being Netaji and proceeds onto meticulously building the character of him. As the research dwells deeper into the Sadhu, confessions and facts send chills down the spine. With the authors answering and rejecting the most popular questions and allegations against Netaji, our faith stands baffled, logic stands challenged and our “popular” history completely rattled and turned upside down.

The sacrifice for country, the torture thereafter, the continued determination, the unknown side of spirituality, the complete metamorphosis or Chandra Bose’s melancholy feelings towards the ending days of his life would leave you gasping for words.

If not for Netaji, but at least for the sake of knowledge on his deep and farsighted politics, military strategy and inspiration from his steel strong will & determination, this book should be read.

Highly recommended & a MUST read !

[Ajay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be the book of the year.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

When considering the recent corpus of works on Subhas Chandra Bose by Chandrachur Ghose and Anuj Dhar, it’s hard not to see them as a four-movement composition, each book playing a distinct thematic role yet echoing and developing motifs first introduced in the opening bars.

Conundrum, published before the major 2016–2020 declassification wave had reshaped the field, feels like the overture: brisk, insistent, and pitched to draw in an audience that might otherwise have considered the “Netaji mystery” an indulgence for armchair sleuths rather than a subject for serious historical inquiry. Bose: The Untold Story of an Inconvenient Nationalist functions as the expansive biographical second movement, broadening the scope from the last chapter of Bose’s life to the full arc of his political and personal journey.

The Bose Deception, in contrast, plunges into the files like a third movement scherzo — quicker, sharper, document-dense, and focused on dismantling the official death narrative through post-declassification evidence. Finally, Government Doesn’t Want You to Know This acts as both coda and encore, an almost defiant compilation of raw material and argument designed to be a public dossier — accessible to lay readers but bristling with the primary-source scaffolding that underpins the authors’ claims.

Conundrum, read now, has the air of a determined early push. Dhar’s prose here is fast-paced and slightly combative, happy to name contradictions and signal frustration with bureaucratic obfuscation, while Ghose’s more methodical archival sensibility tempers the narrative with close readings of inquiry commission reports, foreign intelligence intercepts, and witness testimonies. Without the post-2016 declassified documents that would later fuel their research, the evidentiary load rests on older sources — Justice Mukherjee Commission’s findings, testimony from survivors and descendants, and the scattered intelligence traffic long in circulation among Bose researchers. The book takes the familiar official story — a fatal plane crash in Taiwan on 18 August 1945 — and rapidly subjects it to stress tests: timelines that don’t align, witnesses who contradict each other, governments that delay announcements and redact files in ways inconsistent with closure.

This is not the slow, footnote-laden style of an academic monograph; it’s investigative journalism sharpened by years of immersion in the Bose mystery. At its best, Conundrum makes the reader feel like a co-investigator, privy to both the factual tangle and the thrill of pattern recognition. At its weakest, the speed of movement sometimes collapses nuance, allowing inference to leap ahead of substantiation.

The real achievement of Conundrum lies less in solving the case — something it never claims to do definitively — and more in reframing it. Before this, much of the writing on Bose’s disappearance occupied two camps: debunkers of “conspiracy theories,” who treated alternative narratives as the province of cranks, and romantic affirmers of survival myths, who often substituted sentiment for source criticism. Ghose and Dhar chart a middle course: skeptical of the crash-death account, but committed to documentary rigor.

In this way, Conundrum clears a conceptual space for what will come next. It poses the right questions — what did governments know and when, why were key witnesses contradictory, why was the evidentiary trail so inconsistently maintained — so that the later works can set about answering them with newly available material.

Bose: The Untold Story of an Inconvenient Nationalist shifts the lens dramatically. This is Ghose’s solo work, and his historian’s sensibility shapes it into a biography that is not just a political narrative but an interrogation of why Bose remains inconvenient to successive Indian regimes.

It folds the disappearance into a larger life story, showing how Bose’s ideological trajectory — his embrace of militant nationalism, his uneasy alliances during World War II, his challenge to Gandhi’s primacy within the Congress — made him an awkward figure for post-Independence India to memorialise. The disappearance becomes both a literal mystery and a metaphor for how the nation has selectively erased or softened certain parts of its own political genealogy.

In The Untold Story, Ghose moves with less haste than in Conundrum, building an account of Bose’s early influences, his ideological formation, and his evolution as a political actor. The research is deep in archival and contemporaneous press sources, but also attentive to intellectual history.

This means the “mystery” element is set within a fuller picture: Bose’s strategic and philosophical choices, his negotiations with Axis powers, his reading of geopolitics, and his ability to inspire loyalty across ideological boundaries.

The disappearance is still treated seriously — as an unresolved historical problem — but here it gains pathos from being the last unresolved chapter in a life already defined by audacity and risk. Compared to Conundrum, this is a slower, denser, and more context-rich read.

Where Dhar’s narrative voice is often direct and urgent, Ghose in solo mode tends towards analysis and exposition, grounding every claim in a web of citations. The result is a work that can appeal to academic readers without alienating a general audience, though its pace may feel deliberate to those who came for the thrill of mystery alone.

If The Untold Story is the wide-angle lens, The Bose Deception is the forensic close-up. This co-authored work takes full advantage of the post-2016 document releases, mining newly declassified files from Indian and foreign archives to reassess the events surrounding August 1945. The tone here is sharper and more evidentiary than Conundrum. There is less reliance on inference from old witness statements and more on hard archival finds: memos, intelligence cables, diplomatic correspondence, and surveillance reports that had not previously been available to the public.

The narrative structure often mirrors the method of investigation — present a document, situate it in the timeline, cross-reference with other sources, and draw out contradictions with the official crash narrative.

One of the key differences between The Bose Deception and Conundrum is confidence of argument. In the earlier book, the authors are careful to frame themselves as challengers of the official story, aware of their dependence on partial evidence.

By the time of The Bose Deception, the weight of new documents allows them to speak more assertively: not only is the crash story unsupported, but the pattern of official handling suggests deliberate obfuscation.

The book is also less concerned with convincing readers that the mystery is real — Conundrum’s primary rhetorical task — and more concerned with mapping exactly how the deception was sustained. The tone remains accessible, but the texture is thicker with primary material. The authors retain the dual-voice style — Dhar’s quick, pointed commentary interlaced with Ghose’s source-driven analysis — but here it feels more balanced, the archive giving both voices a firmer foundation.

Government Doesn’t Want You to Know This extends the post-declassification momentum but changes the format. It is as much a curated dossier as it is a narrative argument, designed to make the raw material of the Bose mystery available to the public in digestible form. The title signals its populist edge: this is less about persuading historians and more about equipping citizens with the evidence to challenge official versions.

Structurally, it moves between thematic clusters — intelligence surveillance on Bose’s family long after 1945, diplomatic communications hinting at knowledge of his survival, bureaucratic resistance to file releases — and narrative commentary that ties the clusters together. The effect is to collapse some of the distance between researcher and reader: here are the documents, here is what they seem to show, here is why that matters.

In terms of style, Government Doesn’t Want You to Know This leans into accessibility without sacrificing detail. The document reproductions and summaries are clear, the commentary concise, and the sequencing logical. Where The Bose Deception was an argument illustrated by documents, this book is almost the reverse: a set of documents given argumentative framing. It is meant to be used — cited in debates, shared on social media, introduced into public discourse.

In that sense, it is the most openly activist of the four, embodying the authors’ long-standing aim to shift the Bose mystery from the margins of public consciousness into the mainstream of historical and civic debate.

Read in sequence, the four books trace a trajectory from provocation to consolidation. Conundrum plants the flag, insisting that the official story does not hold up to scrutiny and that serious researchers have both the tools and the duty to dig deeper. Bose: The Untold Story enlarges the frame, integrating the disappearance into a full biography that underscores why Bose’s legacy has been politically inconvenient.

The Bose Deception tightens the screws, using new archival evidence to construct a more detailed and damning case against the crash narrative. Government Doesn’t Want You to Know This flings open the archive, inviting the public to engage directly with the primary sources and draw their own conclusions. Each book builds on the last, not by replacing it, but by layering depth, breadth, and immediacy.

One of the most striking through-lines across all four is the balance — sometimes tension — between accessibility and rigor. Dhar’s voice ensures that the works never become hermetically sealed academic texts; he is comfortable using plain language, rhetorical questions, and even a hint of provocation to keep the reader engaged.

Ghose’s archival discipline ensures that the narrative never strays too far from the documentary record; even when hypotheses are advanced, they are tied to identifiable sources. This combination means that the books can function as entry points for lay readers and as resource maps for more specialized researchers.

The risk, of course, is that each audience might wish for more of what they value most — general readers for more pace and punch, specialists for more caveats and methodological transparency — but the commercial and critical reception suggests that the balance has worked more often than not.

In comparative terms, Conundrum’s greatest strength is its role as a conceptual icebreaker. It arrives at a time when the discourse is polarised between mockery and mythologising, and it insists on a third path grounded in evidence. Its weakness is inevitable given its publication date: the absence of later declassified material means that some of its arguments are circumstantial, some patterns are suggestive rather than demonstrable.

The Untold Story’s strength lies in its breadth and integration; it makes the mystery legible as part of a larger political biography and thus situates it within India’s twentieth-century history. Its relative weakness, for mystery-hunters, is that the disappearance is only one of many threads and not always the dominant one.

The Bose Deception’s strength is evidentiary density; it is the most persuasive to a sceptical historian because it draws so heavily on primary sources unavailable to earlier writers. Its weakness, if any, is that the sheer volume of detail can overwhelm readers without a strong prior interest in the case. Government Doesn’t Want You to Know This thrives on accessibility and immediacy; it puts the raw material in the hands of the public. Its potential drawback is that, as a dossier, it assumes a level of prior engagement or motivation in the reader to work through the implications.

The interplay between the four also reflects the authors’ evolving strategy. Conundrum is about establishing credibility and reframing the terms of debate. The Untold Story is about embedding the disappearance in a life-long narrative that demands reassessment of national memory. The Bose Deception is about consolidating the case against the official narrative with post-declassification firepower. Government Doesn’t Want You to Know This is about democratising the archive and sustaining public pressure.

The movement is from persuasion to consolidation to mobilisation — a trajectory that mirrors the rhythm of many long-term historical controversies that move from fringe to mainstream.

For readers encountering the Bose mystery for the first time, Conundrum remains a gripping entry point, offering the satisfactions of investigative narrative without requiring specialised knowledge. Those wanting the full sweep of Bose’s life, including but not limited to the disappearance, will find The Untold Story indispensable. Readers committed to testing claims against the hardest available evidence will gravitate towards The Bose Deception.

And those ready to take the debate into public and political spaces will find Government Doesn’t Want You to Know This a practical arsenal. Taken together, the quartet offers a rare combination: narrative drive, archival substance, and civic purpose.

In the larger historiography of Bose, these books represent a shift from viewing the disappearance as either a settled fact or an eccentric obsession to recognising it as an open historical problem with significant political implications. They have also, by virtue of their accessibility, broadened the conversation beyond academia.

The mystery is no longer just the property of specialists or partisans; it is available, in both argument and evidence, to anyone willing to engage. In this sense, Ghose and Dhar have not just contributed to a field of research — they have altered its public status.

If there is a unifying impression after reading all four, it is that the Bose mystery is not a static puzzle but a dynamic historical problem, one that shifts as new material emerges, as political contexts change, and as the terms of public debate evolve. Conundrum captures the moment of re-opening the case.

The Untold Story embeds that case in a biography that challenges the official memory of the nation. The Bose Deception exploits the archival opening to press the argument with new force. Government Doesn’t Want You to Know This seeks to keep that force in the public domain, preventing closure by omission. Each has its own tone, texture, and tactical purpose, but together they form a sustained intervention into one of modern India’s most persistent historical controversies.

And perhaps that is the real achievement: to take a story long frozen into either reverent myth or dismissive footnote and make it again a matter of live, contested history — a conundrum, yes, but one that is now mapped, narrated, and armed for the long work of truth-seeking.

In a publishing landscape where historical debates can so easily harden into self-confirming camps, the Ghose–Dhar collaboration, across these four books, offers something rarer: an evolving, responsive, and open-ended inquiry, committed not just to an answer but to the process of asking better questions.

[Abhishek Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly, I really do apologize for the late review. I had completed the book quite a few days back but wanted to take some time to sit and write a proper review instead of just randomly providing a generic one (since the content is about Netaji, my idol). Also, the book is a well researched one spanning across 850+ pages. So, I believed that it would be better to take some time and ingest every bit of information, fact and figure present out there so that I accidentally didn't miss anything.

I would like to heartily congratulate the authors Anuj Dhar and Chandrachur Ghose for the enormous research on behalf of Mission Netaji as well as on their own. However, what is even more commendable is the way they have successfully compiled all of these and presented it to the readers. The way the chapters are composed, the compilation of facts and figures based on secret Govt. documents retrieved via RTI petitions as well as from other sources, the translations and understanding of Bhagwanji's letters to his followers, is really commendable. Initially I was very skeptical owing to the sheer volume of the book and the number of pages, however the authors have really done a wonderful job in carefully arranging the content in form of a story line where the reader is taken to and fro between the present world (How world renowned handwriting experts are interpreting the case today vs how the so called experts purposely provided incorrect information to the Commissions set up by the Govt) and the past (How the Gumnami debate started, how the commissions were set up etc). There are large sections where we go through details on conversation or correspondence between Bhagwanji and his followers. Also several incidents of great significance are highlighted throughout the text. And then, there are generic facts and incidents showcasing the political turmoil in the country during and after independence (all of which are supported with official documents from the archives).

For example, the bitter revealing truth about how India was provided independence by the British govt. (with lots of underlying clauses that were hidden from general public) is utterly shocking. The fact that the Govt. does not have an official doctrine of Independence on how the dominion of India was formed shows the level of conspiracy and political lust within which our country gained independence. Another very interesting part was how the province of Bengal was continuously subjugated first by the Britishers and then by the leaders of Independent India to ensure that Bengal never rises up (or manages to rise in unison) in case Netaji revealed himself to the public.

The letters and discourses from Bhagwanji are mind blowing and reveals a spiritual leader who had renounced everything for sake of the mother. The occasional disburses on political affairs, understanding of world politics and military routines and strategies showcases the leader whom we so much loved and revered.
Quoting from "The Dark Knight", Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was indeed the hero that India needed but didn't deserve.

Overall, the authors never try to impose their opinion through the book that Bhagwanji was Netaji. Rather they present facts and figures along with official disclosed documents and lets the reader come to a conclusion. I found the section on why Bhagwanji never came out in public to reveal himself, really detailed and specific where the authors really showcased reasons that cannot be ignored. Also conspiracy theories raised around Bhagwanji that he not Netaji but rather was an impostor, has been clinically countered and negated with facts and figures as well.

In the end this is a very well researched case presented to the readers in form of a book in lucid language so that everyone is aware of Bhagwanji and can determine by themselves after going through the evidences whether he was indeed our beloved Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Overall, I am 95% convinced that Bhagwanji was indeed our beloved Netaji. The rest 5% can probably be sufficed through further disclosures from the Govt as well as detailed forensic tests (From 3rd party neutral laboratories) of the items left by him.

To summarize, this is a must read for all Indians and we should also try to recommend and encourage everyone to read this book and come closer to the truth. Kudos to the authors once again and I am hoping the upcoming movie Gumnaami is going to bring the content of the book to the masses across India.

[Shameek Mookherjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well as the Authors claim, and rightly so this is the most comprehensive piece of writing on India's longest running mystery, the disappearance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose post 1945. The Author's here and their activist group is one who have researched this matter around 2 decades and have done it untiringly and logically.
The Man who was responsible for India's freedom was forgotten after 1947, slowly buried, by the system of governance of free India was the foremost stakeholder. However, there were some lone rangers from erstwhile freedom fighters to Netaji enthusiasts and researchers who kept the issue alive in the nations psyche.
The book is lucidly written and pins down all the conspiracy theories from the Air Crash which never happened in Taihoku, which even the Taiwan government has affirmed, to the killing theory in Stalin's captivity which again is story without any proof, to the unnamed Holy Man who lived in many parts of UP, with his final abode being Faizabad.
The unnamed holy man, revered as Bhagwanji amongst his followers with the epithet of "Gumnami Baba" given by the media (if I am not wrong), never came out, always in hiding but met with people like Dr. Pabitra Mohan Roy, Leela Roy and others, who were close confidants of Netaji. The letters discovered from Faizabad, the handwriting experts and their views are nothing but genuine proofs which has been used by authors to prove their case, which till today is the most conclusive narrative in the Netaji Story.
Yes, there will be questions, and they are many. Why a personality like Netaji would go into hiding, why would he live like an ascetic, and why he would not contact his family, his followers, all the answers have been given in the book, with a straight forward narrative and the answers at every given point is being supported by evidences and proofs.
Yes, the authors have delved into some issues, which may be not comfortable to Netaji followers and could be an antithesis to what he stood for, and rightly so the Authors have mentioned that they are open to accepting changes, if new evidences are found other wise.
Well, the question still remains is, why the Nation is so ungrateful to the Man, who made the country free? Why the society majorly considers Netaji as just as another heroic freedom fighter?
Why still Netaji Bose has to stand below to Mahatma Gandhi in the official Indian narrative? this book and many others which have been published in the recent times may well be blackboard on which the new history and the political narrative of this nation changes.

[Siddhartha Pakrashi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for every Indian- young and old. It’s a excellent piece of investigative journalism where the principle that truth is above all else has been upheld without any kind of compromise . The eventual truth about netaji’s life is for the reader to judge . In the book, facts have been laid out as is and in a very organised manner. I don’t think there is any Indian who does to hold Netaji in high respect. It is also an established fact that he has perhaps not received his due position in India’s history. But the least we can do is read stuff like this learn more and more about that legend .

[Subha Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

I urge everyone this extremely well researched and well documented book revealing the life of Netaji after his "so-called" death in a plane crash in 1945. Kudos to both the authors Mr. Anuj Dhar and Mr. Chandrachur Ghosh for their extremely meticulous methodology for reaching this sensational but extremely sad conclusion about the last days of our Netaji. The book is written as a thriller novel where the readers are definite to feel the goosebumps as the events unfold with each progressing chapters.
After completing the whole book, it is my belief that everyone will feel associated with the life of Netaji in a way as if he is one of our own family member.

My heartfelt thanks and regards to both the authors for publishing this gem of a research. As a country , this is the least we can do for Netaji.

[Aniruddha Bagchi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book on the mystery of Netaji's supposed death. There are many books that discuss Netaji's life till August 18, 1945 and there is not much disagreement till that time about the facts (although there are sharp differences in assessments of his contribution). However, Netaji's fate from that day onwards is far from clear. There is one theory that says that he died in an air crash in Taiwan on that date. This theory has gained more currency in academic circles, particularly because of the research of Leonard Gordon and Sugato Bose. There is a second theory that says that Netaji did not die in a crash but escaped to Russia where he was ultimately executed. There is a third theory that says that he came back to India sometime in the 1950s and led a life as a reclusive monk. This monk was variously known as Bhagwanji, Parde Wali Baba, etc. This book argues that this third theory is the correct one and puts forth supporting evidence. I would not like to add any spoilers here. So I am refraining from commenting on the evidence, except to say that it is strong. Please read the book with an open mind and you will find that this is not at all a cock and bull story as has been claimed by some.

My own opinion is that the evidence is quite credible. To the credit of the authors, they discuss some aspects of this man (such as his interest in the paranormal) that may be used to sow doubts against this theory. However, in my opinion, the fact that the authors did not try to hide uncomfortable aspects is a plus and enhances their credibility. I also noticed that Bhagwanji had a habit of exaggerating his importance in world affairs (post Indian independence) that I find hard to believe, even though I have immense respect for Netaji. Again, I reiterate that no man is perfect and it will be a mistake to conclude that the theory is wrong based upon some character flaws. The authors have put forth an explanation for such aspects at the very end of the book.

All in all, the quality of evidence presented in the book is very strong. I am aware that some people (such as many members of the Bose family) have criticized this theory saying that it would have been impossible for Netaji to stay as a recluse. This at best is an opinion. I can think of reasons why he might have stayed as a recluse. So my message to the critics of this theory is try to come up with something better than what you have so far.

[Amit Kar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Netaji was Bhagwanji.. That is proved.
The legacy of this great son of India jas been systematically snubbed and evicted - that is evident.
But was Bhagwanji actually a part of the "horizon" is far from belief... Even to die a hard follower. Yet it can be safely assumed that it was possible given the type of spirit his was.

At the end of this book the hunger to know the complete mystery has only grown tenfold. Kudos to the research and efforts of the authors

Conclusions once again..
Netaji never died in the plane crash, which didn't occur.
Nehru n his thugs ensured a complete annihilation of his legacy n of Bengal..
Gandhi was blind and the opposite of statesmanship..
Netaji must be restored and made know to the masses and followed in spirit and die hard nationalism!
Jai Hind

[Brijesh Chandrakar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life after "death" of India's greatest freedom fighter:
First of all, I would like to congratulate authors for doing such tremendous and thorough research, given the limited material they had. Authors also played a big role in bringing out a lot of government files on Netaji through RTIs and activism. They deserve all the credit for that. The approach authors have taken is very logical and investigative and the greatest thing about this book is authors haven't tried a bit to be politically correct (which Netaji was neither). They have bluntly spoken their views and carried forward the views of Bhagwanji, however offensive those views might be to Gandhians, Nehruvians and Marxists.
I am in awe of the personality of Bhagwanji. His words and ideas were original, spiritual, intelligent. It was like hearing words from a true sanyasi and gyani who was well aware of so many critical events happening around in the world. I could also feel pain and deep grief in his words, especially for the mothers and sisters of Bengal. At the same time, I felt anger for our contemporary politicians and historians who have been negationist and morons for ignoring the well being of Hindus in East Bengal. There is so much I can write that this book has taught me which I was mistaught and mislead by historians (propagandists). This I think is the biggest success of this book apart from establishing the fact that Netaji never died in the plane crash in 1945 and was living in India till 1985 as Bhagwanji. How? For that, you have to read this book.

[Anujit Mitra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hats off to the authors for the painstaking efforts made to go after every thread connected to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's disappearance from the public life. Anybody reading this book will be convinced (if the reader was not knowing it even before reading it) that the official line of his death in 1945 air crash near Taihoku airport has been a fabrication. The movie titled 'Gumnami Baba' (available in Amazon Prime) has worked on the hypothesis that Bose came back in India post-independence, but did not want to reveal his identity to the public. This book establishes that too. But the outstanding work done in this book is to examine all related issues, assertions and going behind the reasons of why the people on the know, behaved the way they did, including the 'Baba'. Very importantly the authors were not really blind fans of Netaji and therefore could bring out all the incongruities with equal candor. They were outright rationalists and did not sigh away from talking about the weaknesses shown in the characters of our great icons, without being judgmental.
Despite the length of the book, it presented an intriguing story involving national and international politics involving all the super powers. The evidences were dug out and presented diligently and the reader will get shocked as well as astounded.

[Priyadarshi Mukherjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third book I am reading on this topic, the other two being "India's Biggest Cover Up" by Anuj Dhar himself and "Gumnami Baba- A Case History" by Adheer Som. In spite of this, I am simply awestruck by the amount of effort the authors have put in the research over the years. Moreover, when one of the authors is a person whose efforts have been recognized by the court of law itself (Allahabad High Court), this book deserves the attention of the readers.

The authors themselves know that this in-depth research of theirs will disturb the sleep of many people out there and this would not have been the case... if the topic of research was Nehru or Gandhi. Still that they pursued this topic is a sign of their true love and respect towards Netaji and his INA. This also shows that they are not like INC, who simply used the "INA emotion" of the country to cross the river of election in the 1940s.

[Chitram Banerjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The authors elaborate their long research on the mystery of the disappearance of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. The three possibilities are accentuated and discussed:

1. Whether he died in the plane crash in Taihoku on 18 August 1945.
2. Or he fled and hid in Russia.
3. Whether he came back to India and lived in Faizabad as an ascetic, whom people called Bhagwanji or Gumnami baba.

None of these theories are new. What is unique about this book is its immense logical and factual pieces of evidence.

An avid enthusiast will find this book captivating. The form of the book is neither of a story nor of a purely legal case file: it is somewhere in between. It is unknown to me, whether the authors (Netaji-researchers) are proceeding for an actual legal case or not. But, via this book, they successfully present their logic and evidence in front of the court of the public, for their verdict.

[Arunayan Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

The authors tried their best to prove one Gumnami Baba as Subhas Chandra Bose with many hearsays and secondary published news,books and peeiodicals. None of them have any concrete proof of this. One point of time they put so called Gumnami Baba as Netaji similar to SuperHero who travelled all over the world and provided his expertise for world leaders , irrespective of severe health problems travelled all the places without noticed by Indians in India expect people from outside of India. At last they put another theory that the Gumnami Baba has PTSD and for this Netaji lost his memory. This book nothing but a historical fiction based on some real life documents.

[Somnath Chakraborty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very important book of our times. The best part is though voluminous, there is not a single wasteful page
The authors stick to the primary question and answers the same in great details in a logical manner

[Ullasa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well Researched Book on Subhash Chandra Bose's Disappearance & Re-appearance

[Mani Rayaprolu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe this book is one that has the potential to rewrite Indian history.

To me this book is a summation of India's most enduring mystery ' Netaji '. Easily the darling of India and his allure only increases with each passing year, this book is an excellent attempt at getting the World to Understand netaji's fate and the reasons that lead to it.

The final chapter is actually tinged with sadness for two reasons. 1. The book is actually comingto an end. 2. The reasons why Netaji became Gumnami Baba

A compelling read for every Indian.

[Shantanu Dey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extremely well researched and hard fact based book. The facts presented are mind boggling and it reveals very clearly that Gumnami Baba was none other than Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. It would only need an impartial probe and willingness from the country's leadership to establish his identity. The authors have done commendable work in this regard and this book may well go down in history as one of the major sources for secondary research regarding Netaji's alleged disappearance and after life

[Pronam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most comprehensive research on Netaji. Easy to get lost in the details as it is really thorough. Salutes to the author for the fighting relentlessly for the cause.

[Upasana Bhattacharyya · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We are only thirteen here to see him off on his last journey. There should have been thirteen lakhs." Said Ram Kishore...

The book starts with the death of Bhagwanji , who is claimed to be great Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. It contains 15 years of painstaking research done around the mystery surrounding one of India’s greatest freedom fighters and mass leaders. The official position of successive governments is that Bose passed away in an airplane crash, however the book explores two more possibilities concerning his survival after the alleged crash. The book looks at the theory of Netaji as a mystic baba in U.P called “Bhagwanji” or as the press liked to call “Gumnaami Baba”. Both authors explore the third theory behind Netaji's disappearance in their painstaking quest to find answers as they went through numerous interviews, personal accounts, declassified documents, etc. The book packs a lot of mystery behind this figure. as someone who seemingly had access to the leadership in China, Russia, etc. A person who would fondly talk about Mao, vehemently oppose Nehru and have a lukewarm relationship with Gandhi, Bhagwanji seemed to be in all aspects someone either close to Bose or Bose himself. His handwriting was analysed to be similar to the late leader. His usage of the language, as many witnesses claim, bore a strikingly uncanny resemblance to the way Bose used to deliver his speeches. The book dives into many spheres of life and one might say that, given how unique Netaji was, this was indeed suited and crafted in that sense. Nevertheless, the book retains its mystery and tries to highlight how successive governments shied away from launching an actual probe into the account of Netaji Bose after the airplane crash.



The book starts with the death of the Baba in the 1980s, that's where the whispers start coming. The authors have deliberately made such a narrative to pick and choose from the past and the present, for piquing the interest of the reader. To be honest, since it's a book based on a lot of research, the chapters have the potential to get very long and tiring at times. A whole chapter dedicated to the report on Bhagwan Ji's handwriting itself shows certain nuances that may or may not be interesting for every reader. The two authors could have achieved more had they wished of making a series based on their research, rather than presenting it in one book. But, one can probably understand why the authors chose to adopt this method of story-telling.



Nevertheless, the story has interesting and captivating moments as well. The authors showed a great deal of interest and spheres where Bhagwanji was interested. The Baba is rumoured to have had a keen interest in other aspects like geopolitics, internal politics, and religion. The authors have recorded some instances when the Baba has claimed to have intervened in the Sino-India conflict, as well as helping the Dalai Lama escape. The authors somehow find one reference for this but such difficult and sketchy aspects need more investigation and research. It's quite frankly an adventure that helps the story keep the interest piqued till the last page. The authors also address criticisms of their rivals, most notably from some prominent members of the Bose family. The book addresses the work done by the authors of the book “The Prisoner Of Yakutsk” and concludes on the basis that while it is slightly easy to copy characteristics and mannerisms, it is however impossible to completely mirror someone’s handwriting. Therefore, both Chandrachur Ghose and Anuj Dhar state that Bhagwanji was indeed Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.



The book is a lengthy read, almost as a research paper is made in any particular stream. It has many layers of patterns that need to be further looked and researched to bring a close to the chapter of Bhagwan Ji and Bose as well. The fact that governments have shown a lack of approach addressing this properly is repeatedly highlighted. The book tries to keep the element of truth alive for Netaji and his legacy. Despite repeated accusations thrown at the authors, they have managed to knit web of untangled and interesting aspects that keep the book pacy, but at times too complicated to read. That is not a fault with the story or the research but like I earlier mentioned, it would have helped if the wealth of information could have been divided into either two or three parts. Perhaps the authors felt it's necessary that such a particular story has many nuances that are interlinked and slightly complicated to be left alone in a different book. At the same time, it is interesting for those who truly show interest in this mystery as the attention given to every particular finding has its moments of crispness and even blandness since the authors try to avoid getting trapped into any particular loose end. It is very fascinating to see how they have managed to travel widely and picked up every little source which they can about Netaji. From Russia, Vietnam, China to even declassified documents of the CIA, the book does show a lot of work done by both authors purely in their aspect of finding the truth. I must say This book is full of explosive facts & truths.It’s a excellent piece of investigative journalism where the principle that truth is above all else has been upheld without any kind of compromise . The eventual truth about netaji’s life is for the reader to judge .



Therefore, "Conundrum: Subhas Bose’s life after death" is a must-read for people who admire investigative journalism and adore Netaji.

[Mithilesh Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the age of social media, when our readings and writings are limited to the status messages, reading a 900+ pages book is a sort of achievement.

𝘽𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬
𝑻𝒊𝒕𝒍𝒆: 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙧𝙪𝙢: 𝙉𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙟𝙞'𝙨 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝
𝑨𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓: Chandrachur Ghose & Anuj Dhar
𝑽𝒆𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒄𝒕: 5/5

𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒄𝒕: A seminal research work with a gripping storyline that counters the verdicts of establishments and settles Netaji's mystery for once and all.

𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐦?

1) Read if you are proud to be an Indian and want to make it a better place.
2) Read if you want to know why India is still suffering despite 73 years of Independence.
3) Read If you want to know India's real history, which was never taught to you.
4) Read to know why and when our media, political system, and bureaucracy became corrupt and inefficient.
5) Read to know if you love Netaji and want his mystery to gets resolved.

A big book that does not require much time to finish. As once you start reading, you lose track of time and finish within no time. A thought-provoking book that has definitely made me a better person.

So, grab your copy! And seek the truth yourself.

[Prithwish Kundu · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extensive work of very very deep research about wide range of matters to unravel the mysteries regarding Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose after 1945. The book presents all sides of the related matters and delves deep into each. Very commendable work by the authors who have been working relentlessly almost over past 2 decades to bring out to common public information and facts that are beyond their reach about one of the greatest sons of Indian and Bengali soil.

[Vishal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book - thoroughly researched and eye opening facts about Subhash C Bose. The author has done a wonderful job in representing all the facts there are available in presenting an accurate picture of whether Bose died in 1945 or lived in India beyond that period. There are also so many unpleasant truths about Nehru and other politicians and how some betrayed their motherland for their own selfish interests. It's also heart drenching to find out that Bose - a leader who should have been at the helm of the country's affairs was betrayed by the people of this country and died a destitute. Must read for the true citizen of this country.

[amit singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched. Investigative. Inspiring.

[Sayani Naskar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing

[Kanchan Banerjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

My journey with author started in the year 2007 when he had come up with his 1st book in this series 'BACK FROM DEAD' on Bhagwanji-an unnamed Saint who dwell across the towns of U.P for forty to forty five long years and ultimately shot into fame after his death in 1985. Subsequently he came up with 'INDIA'S BIGGEST COVER UP' exposing the diabolic manner in which the Govt of India has systematically covered up the trail of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose after 1945 -the year in which the purported plane crash took place at Taihoko. That was an an outstanding work of investigative journalism.
CONUNDRUM is the last in the series and I certainly consider this as a watershed in research sphere on NSCB(Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose). Co-authored by Chandrachud Ghosh this book bears amply testimony to the untiring effort and unflinching commitment of the authors towards unraveling one of the most intriguing mystery of post Independent India- the mysterious disappearance of NSCB after the so called cock and bull story of Taihoko plane crash in 1945. Time and again it has been proved by the research scholars/Netaji enthusiasts that this plane crash did not take place at all . This has been convincingly established by Anuj in his previous book-INDIA'S BIGGEST COVER UP- and he has also exposed the untiring and clandestine effort the entire Govt machinery has put in to muffle all queries in this matter. The question then remains where did NSCB vanish if the plane crash had not taken place? Did he come back to India and stayed incognito as a nameless saint?If so why didn't he surface? These questions have plagued a lot of Indians since independence interspersed with colorful stories of NSCB moving all across the country as an unnamed saint planning to resurface at an opportune moment to serve his beloved motherland.
Conundrum seeks to answer all these questions through systematic research and analysis of thousands of documents / materials left behind by Bhagwanji, numerous interactions with scores of his followers,devotees with whom this unnamed saint Bhagwanji interacted in 60s,70s and 80s through letters/notes of personal conversations. Lastly authors have meticulously and extensively analysed numerous Govt documents/communications ,dispositions of witnesses before Shahnawaz committee/Khosla Commission and Mukherjee commission which were set up to unravel this mystery from time to time. Needless to say that the 1st two merely put a stamp on the Govt version while the third one rejected the plane crash theory but failed to accept the Bhagwanji angle due to lack of 'clinching evidence'.
Anuj and his co author Chandrachud has successfully answered all these questions in a rather systematic manner amply supported by irrefutable evidence,meticulous and credible analysis that can easily withstand and demolish the shoddy and skeptic arguments of the cynics and detractors. This investigation and analysis covers a period of almost 60 to 70 years of pre independent and post independent India and has picked up and tied innumerable lose ends of an apparently common thread that ran through this substantially long time period linking NSCB with this unnamed saint who lived incognito in various parts of U.P and always interacted from behind the curtain. Portrayal of the personality based on his utterances/writings and also based on the inputs provided by his followers who were in regular touch with him till his last is a very important aspect of this book. Not only that,the reason that prevented NSCB to step into public arena after his return in early 50s and why he preferred to lead life an incognito life as Bhagawanji alias Gumnami Baba alias Pardewala Baba for almost 40-45 long years and why he did not contact his immediate family -who were completely sold out- has been brought out in a quite credible and rational manner.
A well researched spell bounding,rivetting narrative by two intrepid authors of our generation who unravels and fixes the most complicated political jigsaw of post independent India against all odds put forth by the constraints of an inordinate long time horizon and a stubborn /unwilling establishment hell bent on covering the misdeeds of last seventy years. Equally impressive and appreciable is the fact that the authors have managed to retain the interest of the present generation readers even after such a long gap of almost seventy years. A compulsive read for those who wants to believes in the basic tenets of credible investigative journalism and also wants to know the fate of a true nationalist who has been described as 'Patriot of Patriots' by none other than the Father of the Nation.

[Sudeshna Bora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written as an investigative piece , Conundrum by Anuj Dhar and Chandrachur Ghose deals with the man named Bhagwanji/Gumnami baba and his connection to the "supposedly dead" Indian politician Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Before starting my review, I would like to give a background of my knowledge and stand on the topic. I am not a follower or fan of Subhas Chandra Bose. Being born in the north east region of India and to family with a very limited political discourse, my exposure to Bose and his INA was almost non existent. In fact, this book can be considered to be my first attempt in anything related to Bose. In short, I entered this book with a very clean slate and no preconceived sense of loyalty towards him or his cause.

My review as usual will be divided into two segments , "What I liked" and "What I disliked".

What I liked
1. I always start my reviews with the writing style and I don't know of any reason why I should not do so in this book. Both the authors have written the book in a simple manner, with short crisp sentences and to the point language. This makes this book extremely easy to read and digest in spite of the heavy annotations and pages full of people's name.
2. The amount of work being put into this book is awe inspiring. Both the writers are aware how dicey the subject matter is and hence supplies ample proves and substantiates their claim with proper annotations and investigations. In certain cases, to show the hollowness of the government's claim, they have approached independent sources for unbiased review of proves and evidences. Thus, I feel the hard work being done by the authors is praiseworthy.
3. During the initial part of the book, I wondered what exactly is stored in this book of almost 800 pages. In fact, I was sceptical about repetition but this scepticism was put to rest by the breadth of topic covered by the book. My personal favourites were the chapters dealing with the political view of Bhagwanji, his "political activities" during the time period and the cunning attitude of the government to stall the process of unearthing the relation between Bhagwanji and Netaji.
4. For most part of the book, I placed it at a strong 4/5 rating but what won me over was the last chapter and hence I feel it deserves a special mention. The last chapter deals with the case of why Bhagwanji if he was Netaji refused to come to the forefront. In this chapter, the authors pokes holes into the arguments they have built up in the previous chapters. This according to me is a very brave take considering how the purpose of this book is to convince us that both these characters are one and the same. I would additionally like to mention that the authors did not shy away from divulging certain opinions and topics that would put the legitimacy of this entire book and its topic into question. This further increased my respect for the authors and their love for this cause.

Now moving on to what I disliked:

1. Every book has a purpose, it may be to tell a story or to convince us about something. I believe the purpose of this book is to convince us , the readers, that bhagwanji is infact Netaji and in doing so create public pressure for disclosure. Though, I acknowledge the writers have been successful in doing but I feel they failed in making their cause our cause. The question remains why should we care ? If we strip all the emotions and nationality from our psyche, we would not have a single answer as to why knowing this truth is going to help us and not do more harm than good.

2. This book is not written for a non Indian audience or an audience who is not aware of Netaji and his contribution to the Indian Freedom Struggle. I would have appreciated if the book had a dedicated chapter in the beginning to show us what Netaji was and his impact on the Indian Freedom Struggle. Though in later chapters of the book, the authors deal with his struggle and subsequent fall out from the Indian National Congress but a more dedicated chapter would help erstwhile uninformed readers to dive into the subject matter better.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. The faults I mentioned are more of what I wanted more from this book and less of what the book lacked and hence I do not feel it warrants deduction of any point. I would star this book a 5 out of 5. Hope you enjoy it.

[Vijay Rayasam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. It is a well-researched book that explores into the mysteries enveloping the life of one of India's most enigmatic figures, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. The author delved into the depths of historical records and unearthed few well-kept secrets that have shrouded Bose's legacy in a veil of confusion for decades.
This book takes us through the tumultuous times of India's struggle for independence, offering readers a front-row seat to the complexities and clandestine operations that characterized Bose's life. The author not only unearthed historical facts but also meticulously untangles the web of conspiracy theories and speculations that have lingered like shadows over Bose's legacy.
The book shows us the early phase of Netaji’s life while he was a charismatic leader who dreamt of bringing independence to his beloved motherland, who organized an army on his own and floated a parallel government in exile. At the same time the reader also gets to see the complete opposite side of the same person, who after India’s independence, goes almost incognito to live a life of a sanyasi and keeps a close watch on the advancements in political spheres in India and abroad.
The author's meticulous research is evident as he peels back the layers of secrecy, exposing the covert maneuvers, political intrigues, and the covert alliances that surrounded Bose. The author also discusses about the days and occurrences in Bose’s life which are more or less hidden from the public eye.
The author has been very candid in bringing all the information he had including those he collected during the course of writing this book. The author has left no stone unturned in bringing the truth, as it is, for the reader. Though there are many loose ends of the thread, the author has tried his best to untie the knots and weave the loose ends to being a picture with more clarity and leave the rest at the behest of the reader to conclude. The book serves as a testament to the author's dedication to unveiling the truth, even when it is buried beneath layers of secrecy.
The book also throws light on the complexities of his relationships with fellow freedom fighters and does not shy away from the controversies, presenting a balanced view that encourages readers to form their own conclusions about this iconic figure.
While the book may leave readers with more questions than answers, it serves as a crucial step towards unraveling the enigma that is Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. I recommend this book for history enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists, and anyone intrigued by the intricate dance between truth and mystery that characterizes the life of this legendary freedom fighter. Anuj Dhar's compelling narrative invites readers to embark on a thought-provoking journey through the corridors of history, where the echoes of Netaji's legacy reverberate with newfound clarity.